Technical Abstract:
Moniliformin is a low molecular weight mycotoxin that has world-wide potential to contaminate cereal grains. The toxin is produced by F. proliferatum and F. subglutinans and is generally isolated as the sodium or potassium salts of semi-squaric acid. Several traditional methods have been developed to detect moniliformin, however, there is a need for new methods which recognize moniliformin at the molecular level through a binding mechanism. To address this issue, we have synthesized molecularly imprinted polymers that bind moniliformin. Imprinted and non-imprinted polymers were evaluated by equilibrium binding assays and moniliformin concentrations were measured by LC-analysis using UV-detection. Successful polymers were imprinted using toxin analogs as the templates, and non-imprinted polymers exhibited minimal binding under the assay conditions. Significant differences in moniliformin binding by the polymers were dependent on polymer composition, and these differences were highly dependent on the template used to imprint the polymer.